I took two HND-GMP flights on JAL last week and was wondering how successful these flights are. JL, NH, KE, OZ operate these flight on a semi-charter basis, and only a limited number of seats are available for full-fare unrestricted fares. Business Class on both my flights had nice loads.

From what I hear, its practically impossible to use award travel on this sector.
If this service wasn't so profitable (or popular) then why would airlines want to double the number of flights and upgauge all in a few years span. When this first began (2002?), four carriers (OZ, KE, NH & JL) were allowed one daily flight. All used 763 except for KE which used an A333. Now JL uses an 743, NH 772, OZ 333 & KE 744.

Quoting Carpethead (Reply 1): why would airlines want to double the number of flights and upgauge all in a few years span.

It's kinda political. Japanese government wisely uses the limited slots at HND and NRT politically. When the relation between Korea and Japan were not that good, the slots were given as a present. It seems that distributing slot is not easy - as I remember, it even needed agreement of local congress to open 4 more slots in HND to GMP.

All airliners are doing well on this sector, but before they double frequency, it was extremely expensive, 600 USD for roundtrip Y class. It went down afterward. (like 480 USD)

JAL Executive Class was about 30% full going to Gimpo and 100% full coming back to Haneda (Saturday first JL departure) We paid over 850 Euros/person for the round trip.

By the way, both flights (JL 8831 & JL 8832) were operated by 747-400 (ships 910 and 912) We were so glad we didn't have to drive all the way to Narita for this trip. Haneda is so conveniently located, it should offer more international flights.

To some degree you are correct. But HND is pretty much at flight capacity. Aircraft are typically lined up for departures and arrivals throughout the prime travel times which happens to run between 0700-2000.NRT, in my opinion, is hardly at capacity (after seeing how it's done at LGW & LHR). Few ATC efficiencies would work wonders in gaining much more flights. Not to mention ridding of curfews in an airport middle of nowhere.

Quoting Carpethead (Reply 5):Few ATC efficiencies would work wonders in gaining much more flights. Not to mention ridding of curfews in an airport middle of nowhere.

Agreed, I have used NRT a few times but the ATC there seems to be extremely inefficient. One time, when we were lined up at the A rwy for departure, we were not allowed to taxi into position and hold despite there was nothing happening on the A rwy (only B rwy).

NRT's rush hour for departures and arrivals seem to be so limited to certain times of the day. Well, the curfew never goes away because of all those tempered farmers that own the land at the airport. A few contradictions that I've seen though is that the Japanese gov't wanted to move the airport to Yokohama (in Metro Tokyo) at this time, the farmers and the business owners around NRT objected and said that it would affect their business............. Seems like a tragedy of NIMBYism

That's exactly the point. The parallel runways are more than adequately spaced yet they operate dependently. For the first year or so to figure out parallel traffic, no problem (because this the first time at any Japanese airport). But five years later, just plain stupid bureaucracy.

When HND talks about opening an int'l cargo terminal to handle late night traffic; NRT objects vehemently. Then Chiba-prefecture fires back saying overflights into HND will be restricted. Talk about protecting your self-interest!

Gemini573 I don't think the HKG-HND service would happen in the near future. As you can see from Centrair's post, they will fly to Hongqiao and not Pu Dong in Shanghai. This probably from my logical sense means that they don't want to saturate the market for either JL or NH. If they start service to Pu Dong in this case, other carriers like MU might take business away from JL and NH. They would fly pax from Pu Dong to other markets (such as Europe, probably not North America unless they offer amazing fares).

Quoting Gemini573 (Reply 10):I wonder if we'll ever see HKG-HND service in the near future? It would be fantastic not having to go through NRT

As for HKG-HND, I see the potential, but likely would never happen. Because even if pax originating in HKG want to connect to other parts of Japan, what if Japanese pax start using this flight? If Japanese pax can get to HKG from HND, they would most likely use CX to get to Australia, Africa, Middle East, or Europe. This would bring about great damage to JL or NH. Most likely, even Frequent flyers can start shifting towards this route because taking a CX flight would earn them JL miles. So I am quite skeptical of this move.

Quoting Gemini573 (Reply 10):I wonder if we'll ever see HKG-HND service in the near future?

Once the fourth runway at HND is running and a new int'l terminal is built, a very good probability sometime between 2010-2015.

Personnaly, I would like to see HND & NRT treated like LGA & JFK in NYC. HND would have a perimeter rule set up for specific radius or countries for int'l routes and outside of it use NRT. Because even with the opening of the fourth runway at HND, there isn't enough slots for all int'l traffic to shift from NRT.

JL & NH could set up the same flights and downgauge or decrease flight frequency at NRT. If anything, feeding the domestic routes would bring great benefit to these airlines and access from every point in domestic Japan. Saying that, KIX & NGO would definitely be hurt.